The 4-Hour Body_ An Uncommon Guide to Ra - Timothy Ferriss [174]
16. It’s important to use an average, not just the wake time on a scheduled workout day.
EATING THE ELEPHANT
How to Add 100
Pounds to Your Bench Press
Just remember: somewhere in China, a little girl is warming up with your max.
—Jim Conroy, Olympic weightlifting coach
If you get to 315, you can change the music on the iPod.”
I laughed again, not getting the joke. But it wasn’t a joke. DeFranco pointed a finger at the wall, where a large piece of paper was taped:
Bench 315?
Squat 405?
Play on ESPN?
If not, don’t touch the iPod!
There was some distance to go before I benched 315.17 I would have to wait to put Disco Duck on the loudspeakers.
DeFranco’s boys, on the other hand, had no problem with 315. His cadre of beasts included freaks of nature like Rich Demers, who could bench-press 215 pounds for 39 reps. That impressed me.
It impressed me, but it didn’t stun me.
Stunning was Joe Ceklovsky, who has bench-pressed 600 pounds in competition at 148 pounds bodyweight.
Stunning was Scot Mendelson, who has bench-pressed 1,031 pounds in competition at 275 pounds bodyweight.
To put 1,031 in perspective, imagine loading a standard gym barbell with 45-pound plates until no more can fit. That is a measly 885 pounds. Scot has to use 100-pound plates, and the tempered-steel bar literally bends around his hands. He wears a mouth guard so he doesn’t shatter his teeth with jaw tension, and his vision gets pulled out horizontally when the bar pauses at his chest.
These are unusual people. But that’s a compliment. You can learn a lot from the extremes.
Background on the Bench: My Achille’s Heel
The bench press has always been my weakest exercise. Few sports require much of the chest, and my principal sport of wrestling practically made a point of neglecting it.
Even on a steady diet of doubles (sets of two) on Barry’s program, my maximum bench wouldn’t budge. In this, I was an exception.
So I called one of the sages of powerlifting to settle the issue.
Marty Gallagher stays out of the limelight, but has long been in the record books. He has coached some of the most legendary powerlifters of all time, including Ed Coan, Kirk Karwoski, Doug Furness, Mike Hall, and Dan Austin. Coan alone set more than 70 world records. Kirk “Captain Kirk” Karwoski increased the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF) world record for the squat an astonishing 100 pounds during his reign, from 903 to 1,003 pounds, and this world record still stands 16 years later.
Marty is also a three-time master powerlifting world champion and six-time master national powerlifting champion, not to mention that he coached the U.S. powerlifting squad to the IPF world team title in 1991.
Suffice to say, he understands the subtleties of the iron game.
In his words, what follows was his pound-by-pound, workout-by-workout presciption for me, or anyone who wants to add 100 pounds to their current max in six months.
Enter Marty Gallagher
Is it possible for a regular fellow with a 200-pound bench press to add 100 pounds to his bench press in six months? The answer is that, while improbable, it is not impossible. It requires eating the elephant one bite at a time.
There are three requirements:
Requirement #1: A periodized tactical game plan. Periodization is another word for progressive resistance preplanning. Elite powerlifters, Olympic weight lifters, and professional athletes use periodization to stair-step their way upward to ever greater strength levels over a specified time period, usually 12–16 weeks. By expropriating a periodization strategy and applying it to the bench press, the impossible becomes plausible.
Toward the end of his career, Kirk Karwoski never missed a rep in any lift over an entire 12-week cycle. Can you imagine? A man sits down with a pad and pencil 12 weeks prior to a National or World Championship, writes out the projected poundage, reps, and sets for every single session for every workout for the next three months, then never